


The Rest of the Story

by Catchclaw



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, feathers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 12:17:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/748418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean cares for an injured bird that turns out to be something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rest of the Story

**[recording begins]**

Is this--? Dean, have I?

     _Yeah. Red light's on, so it must be working._

Ah. Good.

     _Wait, are those notes? Cas. You wrote shit down already?_

I gathered some of my thoughts in advance, yes. It's important to me to record these events correctly.

     _But I didn't--_

I know. It's all right.

     _Um. Why don't you start, and I'll just, you know. Chime in._

Very well. Ahem. Once upon a time, there was a very lonely man. Though he’d likely disagree with that characterization.

     _Damn straight. I wasn’t lonely, ok? I was focused._

Did you spend all of your time alone?

     _Not all of it, no._

Did you spend more time talking to yourself than to anyone else?

     _…maybe._

Did you wake up in the middle of the night with your heart aching even more than your arms, empty and grasping for something you’d long ago decided you’d never have?

     _Come on! This is getting creepy. Maybe we shouldn’t record this._

As I said: he was lonely.

     _Oh for the love of—!_

But he was also very good at looking happy, even when his heart was ash. He built the homes of other people’s dreams: enormous kitchens and overgenerous hearths and bedrooms big enough for its inhabitants never to touch, never to brush shoulders, even, unless it was their intent.

     _And the bathrooms. Don’t forget those. If I see another marble-lined tub in my lifetime, I’m gonna puke. And explain to me again why people need two sinks? Jesus._

You made a fine living off of 'two sinks.' Your principles did not deter your desire to eat, did they?

     _Yeah, well. You’re the bitchiest narrator I’ve ever heard._

Would you prefer to tell this story on your own?

     _Oh, c’mon. Don’t get your feathers in a bunch. Come over here and sit by me._

Hmph.

     _Or on me. That’s good, too. See? There you go._

As I said—

     _Mmmmm._

Dean. You are not helping. Please restrain your entirely understandable desire to caress me until we’re finished.

     _Oh, I’ll make sure you finish, baby. You know I always finish what I--_

Your attempts to distract me are transparent. If you don’t stop, I’m going to complete this composition by myself.

     _God._ Fine _, Cas. Fine. Get on with it._

So the man—Dean—spent years building sets for other people’s lives while thoroughly neglecting his own. He sank into himself, little by little, year by year, and hid his grief carefully from those who loved him.

     _I couldn’t tell Sam. He’d have just worried. And what was I supposed to say? Hey, I know you’re all settled and shit, that you’re loving driving your kid to preschool and reading him the books that I read you, that your wife is like the literal light of your life, has been ever since the day you met, but set that aside, would ya, and haul your ass up here to cheer me up. That woulda been so fucking selfish._

The man put others’ happiness above his own. Always. And for many years, this way of being was all that he knew. All that he‘d decided he deserved to know.

     _Great. Whoever's listening has probably shot themselves by now. You wanna try a little less Robert Stack?_

I don’t—?

     _I mean, liven it up a little! Sheesh. You make me sound like I was one step from the grave._

Weren’t you?

     _Fuck._

I don’t think that’s an appropriate solution to this narrative dilemma.

     _I love you, you weirdo._

Dean—

     _So keep going._

His life changed on a Tuesday in April, on one of those days that was colder than it looked. The sky behind the house, his house, was easy, the color of beginnings, and the sun slid sleek into the sky, confident, like it’d shaken off months’ worth of winter just for this moment.

     _Dude, it straight up looked like spring. Finally._

So he stood in the kitchen a little too long, let his hand play over the radio and the coffee cool in his hand. He leaned his head against the cabinets and grinned out over the yard.

     _Like I said: spring. At last._

He hadn’t known just how badly he missed sunshine, missed colors that weren’t gray and brown, until the cold had dug its heels into February and hung on tight. It was dark all the time, even during the day, the wind a tricky ninja that broke open his hands. His skin was a shroud, tight and thin, and at night, his knuckles shivered with blood.

     _But that morning, it was perfect. From behind the kitchen window, the world almost ached with beauty._

That was lovely, Dean.

     _Don’t look so surprised. I can sling metaphors as good as the next guy._

Anyway. You can't blame him for his optimism. It had been a long, dull winter, and even the birds were fooled, that day.

     _Yeah. There were these two bluejays going at it on the porch, chasing each other away from the feeder and back. One of ‘em kept banging his head into the legs of the grill._

Bluejays are not the keenest of creatures.

     _And the cardinal, the one who lived in the busted-up elm tree. He was lurching around on the steps, minding his time until Heckle and Jekyll beat it for good, I think. But I didn’t see you then, Cas._

You didn’t?

     _No. Not until I headed out for the truck and fuck, it was a shock when I opened the goddamn door. It was so cold! Totally contradicted the sun and the sky looking all April and man, I was pissed._

You took it as a personal affront. 

     _Well, yeah. I was duped. Mother Nature is such a fucking tease._

She should contort herself to fit your needs, to meet your very particular meteorological desires, is that it?

     _Hey, what’s with the bitchface? Ohhhh. You’re pissed I didn’t see you right away, huh?_

I am not.

     _You_ are!

I fail to see why this is amusing. You could have easily walked right past me. Left me to freeze, or to be harassed by those Cro-Magnon bluejays.

     _But I didn’t. I found you._

Hmph.

     _To be honest, I heard you before I saw. You were making the saddest little peeps._

I do not “peep,” Dean.

     _Not now, maybe. But you were then. Rolling around in the grass just beyond the bottom step and peeping like a mad man. Mad bird, I mean._

If I made any noise, it was purely precautionary. I needed to attract your attention so that you didn’t crush me with your boot.

     _…God. You were so small._

Was I?

     _You don’t remember?_

I don’t remember feeling like that. Small. I do recall that you seemed very large. Dean. Stop smirking.

     _What? I didn’t say a word._

But you are thinking it very loudly.

     _HA!_

Are you finished?

     _Hee! Um. Yes._

More than anything, I remember the pain.

     _Oh jesus, Cas._

I knew that my right wing was broken. My feathers were covered in blood. I could feel the tear in my side where Raphael had stabbed me.

     _Baby—_

And then you were there, this great looming creature above me. I remember I was afraid.

     _You didn’t want me to touch you. You sort of tried to flop away through the grass but you tripped. Over your busted wing, I guess._

Yes.

     _So I bent down and sort of stuck my hand in front of you, so you kinda had no choice but to bump into it. When you did, I picked you up as gentle as I could. And you stopped peeping. Didn’t make another sound. Just leaned into my fingers and let me carry you inside._

You set my bones so carefully, Dean. You touched me like I was something precious. Something to be protected. Something you could heal.

     _Cas._

An attitude that allowed you to overcome your limited knowledge of birds’ anatomy.

     _Heh. I knew enough. Me and Dr. Google did just fine._

Indeed. Although the box you put me in was not terribly spacious.

     _What? You loved it! You spent like hours curled up in there. If birds could snore, that thing woulda been filled with Zzzs._

Regardless.

     _That first night, I couldn’t bring myself to leave you in the kitchen alone. I don’t know why. I didn’t want you to be lonely, I guess. So I put your box in a chair by the bed and watched you try and sleep around your little splint, sweetheart._

Dean.

     _And I just got used to you there. Hell, I almost brought you to the site with me those first few days. Which would have been dumb. But I liked the idea of keep an eye on you. Besides, you ate all the freaking time._

Of course I did. I was healing. I needed the energy.

     _Yeah, you did. And maybe I should have known something was weird when you healed so goddamn fast, and then when you started to grow so righteously._

Mmmm. Perhaps.

     _Do you remember that?_

Much of that time is a blur. The details. But I remember your voice. The way your fingers felt on my feathers. My skin.

     _Oh._

And I remember the day that I came back to myself. That I suddenly knew who I was: Castiel, angel of the Lord. Albeit a wounded one, trapped in the body of a bird.

     _And that’s normal, right? When you all get hurt?_

Normal? No. We have to be gravely injured, on the brink of obliteration, some say. And not all of us who are wounded fall to Earth in this way.

     _Why not?_

I don’t know. It’s not something that we discuss. Even angels don’t care to speak of death. It’s more of a story, a tale that’s passed down to the very young. Angels who are hurt, angels who fall, who take on a different set of wings. 

     _Hmmm._

…and the humans who save them. They’re part of the story, too.

     _Heh. Nice to know we get a bit of a shout out. Now, tell me what it was like for you. Becoming Castiel again._

You were sleeping. It was dark. I had been dreaming, I thought, of heat and light and a thousand voices, bird songs, beautiful and strange in my head. It should have been terrifying, but I found peace there. I recognized myself in those songs, I think. And I opened my eyes and it was that fast, Dean: a bolt of thunder in my mind and I was myself, again. More to the point: I was sitting on top of the box, of your nightstand, and I felt rather--uncoordinated.

     _You faceplanted, you mean. You scared the shit out of me, Cas._

Is that why you punched me?

     _Um. Yeah. But can you blame me?! Some naked guy suddenly shows up in your bedroom in the middle of the night—what was I supposed to think? Gotta say: this guy’s an angel? Not anywhere on my radar at the time._

Understandable. I admit that I was startled, too. That’s why I punched you back.

     _Heh! You got me good, too._

Yes, I did.

     _Modesty's not really one of your problems, is it? That an angel thing or a you thing?_

I’m not sure…

     _Anyway! After we finished hitting, then we talked. Or you did. After I made you put on some pants. And made you some Eggos._

Yes. Those were delicious. I was very hungry.

     _I trusted you, you know. Isn’t that weird? I mean, I should have fucking called 911. Or prayed, or something. But you? You just looked at me, all focused and hopeful, and I believed you. Even though my brain said I shouldn’t. My gut told me you were speaking truth. That’s funny, huh?_

No. It’s beautiful, Dean. As are you.

     _Oh, baby. Huh. Do you remember what you said? Like the thing that really cracked it open for me?_

No.

     _You said: “Dean, when I was broken, you healed me. When I had fallen, you raised me towards the sky.”_

Yes. You did.

     _I know, but—You don’t—those aren’t things that you hear every day, you know? I mean, it was fucking confusing, hearing that come out of your mouth. The same one that was chirping away a few hours before, now there you were, saying stuff that—_

What?

     _—that in any other context would have meant: I love you. And what was weird was that I—I kinda loved you, too._

I—I don’t know that what I felt for you then was “love.” At least, not as I understand it now.

     _You sweet talker you._

But—what I said was true. You did save me. You kept me safe. You let me heal.

     _Yeah. Yeah, ok, Cas. And now—now you’re ready to fly away home, right? I mean, that’s why you wanted to record this, isn’t it. Because you’re gonna leave._

What? Dean, no, I—

     _I mean, I know you don’t want to come right out and say it or anything, but I can see that’s where this is going. You wanna make a record of our story so you’ll have something to take back with you. So I’ll have something of you to keep here with me._

Dean. Listen to me. I’m not leaving you.

     _Not now, sure, but soon you’ll—_

Stop. Please.

     _Cas. It’s ok. I understand._

No, no, you don’t. You’re determined to write this on your own terms, aren’t you? Fuck, Dean. You’re the most willfully blind man I’ve ever known. Listen. Have I never told you the rest of our story? The one that we sing to the youngest among us about the angels who break, the angels who fall?

     _…no._

They don’t return to Heaven. Not because they are unwanted or unable. But because the ones who live, those among us who wear a different set of wings on Earth—to live, we must love. We must be loved. And I love you, Dean. And despite your best efforts, sometimes, I know: you love me.

     _Castiel._

You saved me. You’ve given me a kind of life I’d never have known if Raphael hadn’t hurt me, if my brothers hadn’t turned their backs and let me fall. And I have the rest of my life to return the favor to you, beloved.

     _Cas, I—I think we should turn the tape off._

You—?

     _I’d like to keep this next part just between us._

I don't—Oh. _Oh_ , I—yes, Dean. Yes.

 

**[recording ends]**

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: "Angels at their strongest can manifest as winged humans, but at their weakest revert back to birds. Where Dean takes care of an injured bird who turns out to be an Angel."


End file.
